The dreaded call
There was a time in the 1980s and 90s when Bollywood extensively started befriending members of the underworld. The nexus was at various levels. Gangsters liked the glamour while for many producers it was an easy route to get finance by way of black money. It was all very cosy in the beginning. The underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was said to have an affair with the actress Mandakini and many of his henchmen also had similar relationships. But then it all got out of control when the Dawood gang broke up and all the second rung gangsters began to compete in extorting from Bollywood. That was how one of the music industry baron, Gulshan Kumar, got gunned down. The police got a handle on the issue after a few years by gunning down many of the gangsters and arresting other big fish like Abu Salem. The underworld became like a bad memory that everyone wanted to shake off. Recently, its ugly head reared up again and an unexpected person became the centre of it. Sonu Nigam is neither a producer nor a big star. He is a sought after playback singer in the industry but not exactly a prime extortion target. But he shocked everyone when he said that he was being threatened by a gangster named Chhota Shakeel. He had planned a world tour of performances and had partnered with a company for it. Shakeel, he said, was forcing him to partner with someone else. Nigam was getting calls and texts threatening him. That Nigam went public with it is itself an indication of how Bollywood does not just follow orders anymore. With gangs considerably weakened they can do that. But still it remains to be seen whether the underworld will once again get involved in Bollywood.
Ageing Anil gets third lease
Take a picture of Anil Kapoor in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2013 and there is one thing which will strike everyone — the man hasn’t changed a bit, at least not before the camera. His career, on the other hand, has seen seismic changes. In the 1980s, it was widely thought that he would take Amitabh Bachchan’s place as the next superstar of Bollywood. He gave huge hits but then, for reasons never really very obvious, the promise didn’t pan out. Bachchan’s vacuum remained for a while and it was the three Khans who stepped into it. Kapoor found himself becoming less and less of a star until he was just one more of a second rung brigade. And then main leads also stopped coming and he was playing character roles. He was more or less written off when suddenly, there he was, in Slumdog Millionaire, a Danny Boyle movie, rubbing shoulders with Academy Award winners. His career had just got a second lease of life and this time it was international. He even got a small role in Mission Impossible 3. This week, Kapoor’s home production 24 began to be aired on Indian television. It is a thriller and going by the publicity put into it, it seems likely to make a splash. It is a remake of the hit American series in which Kapoor also bagged a role thanks to his international avatar. The serial is a mammoth enterprise of over 300 people and because of his strong network, it’s got a good director in Abhinay Deo who had made the critically acclaimed Aamir Khan production Delhi Belly. Kapoor says that he had rejected television so far despite offers but this one, almost made on the budget of a Bollywood movie, seemed worthwhile. Looks like his career is getting a third lease of life.
Tabu is back
The last time Vishal Bharadwaj and Tabu came together was in 2003 and it led to the superb flick Maqbool. It was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and made Bharadwaj the director every actor in town wanted to work with. Irrfan Khan, the main character of the movie, also rose from anonymity to star status. Tabu affirmed her role as the most versatile actress of the time. But, at present, while Bharadwaj’s career took off, Tabu’s has plateaued because there is a shelf life to actresses in Bollywood. She doesn’t get the kind of roles which do her justice. It was therefore, heartening when it became known that Bharadwaj is casting Tabu for his next film. It is also inspired by a Shakespeare work, Hamlet. The other stars in the movie are Shahid Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor. Shahid incidentally has an unusual history with Bharadwaj. They worked together in Kaminey but he was said to be so interfering that it riled Bharadwaj. After many of Shahid’s movies flopped and he found his feet again, Kapoor is said to have reached out to Bharadwaj once again and thus got the role in the movie. Bharadwaj, too, has not been able to reproduce the magic of his early fares like Maqbool and Omkara. With Tabu in it, maybe it will take his creativity up a notch or two.
Selection fury
Ever since The Good Road was selected by the Film Federation of India to be India’s nomination for the Academy Awards, merry hell has broken loose. Some pretty big names in Bollywood were rooting for The Lunchbox. This included Anurag Kashyap and Karan Johar. It was kind of self-centred because both of them were involved in it, Kashyap being one of its producers and Johar, its presenter in India. The Good Road, being a Gujarati film, was an outsider and the intense outpouring of disappointment by everyone in Bollywood seemed unfair to it even though by most people’s reckoning Lunchbox was a better movie. Now comes the latest turn in the affair. The Film Federation of India has asked for an apology from Lunchbox’s director Ritesh Batra, Johar and Kashyap for all they said publicly against the selection committee. Batra especially had alleged corruption, which seemed to be taking things too far. On the other hand, they do have a valid point in there being no transparency in how movies are selected to represent the country in the Oscars. Looks like the muddle over the awards is far from over.
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